Videogames Ready To Overtake Film Industry

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PlayStation leads the way as the videogame industry inches closer to the film industry.

By IGN Staff

Thanks in large to the PlayStation's huge holiday sales (see yesterday's article Holiday Sales Propel PlayStation for other information), the videogame industry as a whole generated $7.2 billion in hardware and software sales. This figure is significant, as it is only $0.2 billion behind the $7.4 billion annual box office take for the film industry.

With sales of nearly three million consoles and a 53% share of the market, the PlayStation generated over $1.5 billion in holiday sales alone. To put that in perspective, holiday sales for the PlayStation made up 20% of the total revenue of the videogame industry in 1999.

Sony's Gran Turismo 2 sparked the strong holiday season. Despite being released late in the month was the top selling videogame software title in December and one of the biggest of the entire year.

"When planning for 1999, we underestimated the momentum that the marketplace has generated surrounding PlayStation," said Jack Tretton, VP of sales at Sony Computer Entertainment America. "Through the continued growth of the PlayStation category, our retail partners reported to us that 1999 was a record year for video game sales."

The PlayStation looks to keep going strong in 2000, and with the release of the PlayStation2 in the fall, the videogame industry looks to have one of its biggest years ever. Don't be surprised if, after all is said and done in 2000, the videogame industry completely overtakes the film industry in 2000.